Godolphin and Channel 4 are biggest losers at Royal Ascot 2014

Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin operation was put in the shade by a power shift among Middle East racehorse owners, while Channel 4’s viewing figures suffered another sharp slump

Sheikh Mohammed, centre, during the Royal Ascot presentation ceremony for the King George V Handicap Stakes, won by Elite Army. The colt was Godolphin's only winner at the five-day meeting. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

So much happens at Royal Ascot in the space of just five days that once the blur of action, pageantry and colour has passed for another 12 months, it is tempting to look forward – to The Curragh, Newmarket and Goodwood – rather than back. There will be plenty to admire and excite there too, and no need to dress like a nob to get a decent view.

But Ascot is never just another 30 races in the form book. It is a gauge of the sport’s overall health as well, a canary in the mine for a billion-pound industry which employs tens of thousands of people. And while the weather was kind last week and the results, for the punters at least, even kinder, it might be time to check on the canary, because it has suddenly gone rather quiet.

Perhaps it is feeling peaky after backing Godolphin’s runners all week, because the biggest string in the game had a miserable time in Berkshire. Ascot winners are a scarce resource and even the biggest players can have a bad week, but it was not the lack of big-race success for Godolphin which caught the eye so much as its failure to even compete.

In four of the week’s seven Group One events, Godolphin did not have a runner. In the remaining three, it fielded contenders - to use the word loosely - at 33-1, 25-1 and 16-1. The royal blue colours were missing from two of the seven Group Twos as well, with Godolphin’s sole runners in the other five starting at 7-1, 8-1, 12-1, 14-1 and 20-1.

Qatar, the new force in Flat racing, had rather more to celebrate. Despite the defeat of Treve in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes, Sheikh Joaan al-Thani’s Al Shaqab Racing had 12 runners and three winners: a Group One, and two Group Two events for juveniles. His cousin Sheikh Fahad’s Qatar Racing Limited drew a blank from nine starters, but had the favourite in the King’s Stand Stakes and the runner-up in both the Coventry and Norfolk Stakes.

Members of Qatar’s ruling family were also invited to join the royal procession on two days of the meeting, while Sheikh Mohammed, Godolphin’s founder and driving force, was not. This may seem a trivial point, but perhaps less so if you happen to be an autocratic ruler with an air of authority to maintain, and noisy neighbours who seem intent on disturbing it.

Power shifts are nothing new in British racing, though, and can be seen as a positive sign. The super-rich have been attracted to the sport from its earliest days, and the Qataris’ emergence just as Sheikh Mohammed and his brothers enter their mid- to late-60s suggests that the global supply of fun-loving billionaires remains strong.

The more likely explanation for the canary’s sudden silence is that someone lined its cage with a press release sent out by Channel 4 on Sunday afternoon. Headlined “Channel 4 receives industry recognition for its Royal Ascot coverage”, its first nine paragraphs – which included words like “delighted”, “inspirational” and “brilliant” – must have made him feel quite chirpy. Until he saw the actual viewing figures, and promptly turned up his little toes.

Year-on-year, the numbers were bad enough, showing a decline from Channel 4’s first Royal Ascot in 2013, and with little reason to think that the downward trend will be halted over the final two years of its contract, never mind reversed. The average audience over the five days was down by 11%, from 658,000 to 583,000, while Saturday’s peak figure dropped from 1.1m to 883,000. Wednesday and Thursday posted small increases, but nothing like enough to staunch the overall loss.

When set against the audience in the last year of BBC coverage in 2012, however, the audience figures are catastrophic. The five-day average has declined by nearly 60% in two years, from 1.38m to 583,000.

The bulk of the blame does not lie with Channel 4. A significant drop in the ratings was an entirely predictable result of the decision to abandon the BBC and hand a monopoly on terrestrial racing to a minority broadcaster. It was a decision taken by people who did not understand what they were selling, the audience they were selling it to or the best way to sell it.

The damage it has done, and will continue to do, to racing’s public profile may well prove impossible to repair.

On the track, it was a fine Royal Ascot, but away from it, there was a clear warning that racing is on the wrong path. What will we run out of first: viewers, or canaries?